Euclid to aggressively collect delinquent taxes

Euclid will be cracking down on residents who are delinquent on their income taxes this fall, in what Euclid Mayor Bill Cervenik said has become a “serious problem” in the city.
“Our ordinances and the revised code of the state of Ohio, allows tax departments in municipalities and other tax collection agencies to, when residents refuse to respond to letters requesting tax returns, issue estimated tax returns to those tax payers who do not respond,” he said. “In the next 30 days, we will be sending out over 4,000 estimated tax returns to residents who have refused to respond and refuse to file tax returns... and this is only through the letter M of the alphabet.”
Cervenik said tax collections for the month of July were almost $285,000 below projections, and for the year about $700,000 below projections.
The city will be mailing out orange postcards to those who still owe taxes to the city, as a last call for residents to set up payment plans or pay off past due taxes by Sept. 15.
For those who don’t respond, Cervenik said the city will be issuing residents a $1,000 estimated tax return, for each year they are delinquent, and if they do not respond in 30 days, they will become actual returns.
Estimated taxes were calculated by 2.85 percent of a household income of $35,000.
“If there is no response in 30 days, we will send residents to the law firm of Weltman, Weinberg and Reis and they will do everything by law that they can to collect those delinquent taxes,” he said. “We cannot tolerate this any longer.”
The tax department will have extended hours later this month, from 9 a.m. to noon Sept. 13 and 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 15, along with regular hours 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays though Fridays.
“In order to provide services to our residents, we need to get tough on people who just refuse to pay,” Cervenik said. “There is no excuse for not paying taxes, and certainty no excuse for not responding to our letters.”

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